I figured I owe you this, whoever ‘you’ might be, even if you’re just a section of my subconscious or a figment of my imagination. And I’ve been trying to concoct what I want to say in my head for a while, but, honestly… it’s been hard to decide.

There’s a lot to say, and simultaneously, not very much at all.

In case you’re wondering, I can say with some certainty that moving countries (even to a country where they generally speak English) is a bit of a bitch. Mostly just because of the ties that bind. The emotional ones, the physical ones, and not-so-physical, but still very real bureaucratic and political ties that prevent us from wandering this Earth like free people, man, free to do what we wanna do, even if that’s just sitting around playing our guitars and singing – kum-ba-ya, my Lord… ahem.

That, if I so choose, would be the ‘lot to say’. I could tell you of the swift break I experienced with friends and family, the lack of real feeling because I didn’t know how to feel, which gradually day by day is turning into a void in my heart which… I guess I’ll just have to tread carefully around. But I won’t.

I could bore you with tales of almost monk-like acts of charity as we gave away all our stuff – and then reversed that karma by buying almost everything again, here. I could try to convince you that the process of spending money can actually get quite boring, even depressing – that I actually heard the words “I don’t think I could spend my life shopping” from my wife, that I found myself resenting the fact I had to spend another evening researching electronics or cars or both. But I won’t.

And I guess I could summarise the tricky, but not insurmountable obstacles that we faced in getting here, but honestly, they were just tricky… not insurmountable. If you ever have to face the same, feel free to ask me about it, but I won’t enrich the world by recounting here.

Which brings me to saying not very much at all.

I’ve been going back to basics, like prehistoric man. My primary concerns have been with the most basic of things: shelter, food, safety, money, transport. Now all of those things are accomplished, I ask myself, what’s next? Discover fire? Invent the wheel? Even those have been done, so really when it comes down to it – what is there for me to say that hasn’t been said a million times before?

Everyone’s story is unique of course, a beautiful delicate snowflake etc, but I’ll tell you; there’s nothing like detaching yourself from family, friends and familiar surroundings to make you sit back, look at your own life, and go: woah. Is this it?

Too philosophical? Well I haven’t had breakfast yet.